After World War II, a new
world order came into being in which two superpowers, the United
States and the Soviet Union, played the leading roles. Their
ideological differences led to the arms race of the Cold War and
fears of a global nuclear conflict. The rest of the world was also
drawn into the bipolar bloc system, and very few nations were able
to remain truly non-aligned. The East-West conflict came to an end
in 1990 with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the consequent
downfall of the Eastern Bloc. Since that time, the world has been
driven by the globalization of worldwide economic and political
systems. The world has, however, remained divided: The rich nations
of Europe, North America, and East Asia stand in contrast to the
developing nations of the Third World.

The first moon landing made science-fiction dreams reality in the
year 1969.
Space technology has made considerable progress as the search for
new
possibilities of using space continues.

The nations of Sub-Saharan Africa that became independent after 1957
have continued to suffer the consequences of their continent's
experience of colonialism. The optimism of the early years of
independence soon gave way to repeated military coups, violent
conflicts, and popular disillusionment with promises to end poverty and
improve living conditions. Other problems faced in parts of the region
include drought and famines, limited access to drinking water, and
the alarming growth of HIV/AIDS since the 1980s. These problems are
compounded by authoritarian and frequently corrupt regimes.

Decolonization: Background and Problems

After World War II, weakened European colonial powers and an increased
self-awareness of the native peoples led many African colonies toward
self-government. Since independence, however, most have struggled to
overcome serious economic, political, and social challenges.

Powerful 3, 5 independence movements began forming in the African
colonies following World War II, leading to the creation of many new
African nations since 1957.

The main reason for the success of the
Pan-African movement after 1945 lay in the increased self-awareness of
the African nations. World War II, in which troops from many
4 colonies
fought alongside their colonial rulers, precipitated the end of European
supremacy.

3
Herdsman leads his emaciated cattle through a landscape marked by
drought, 1985

5
Members of the Senegalese population demonstrate for independence

4
Senegalese soldiers on the side of
Allied forces, in German captivity,
1940

The development of new forms of 6 Islam, and especially of
Christianity, that distinctly differed from the Western forms and were
closely tied with concepts of national identity also played an important
role.

Most important of all, though, was a rethinking in the approach of
the weakened European powers after the war.

The majority of the 2 initiators of African independence came from the
groups of native intellectuals and professional elites who had been
educated in the colonial motherlands and who admired the functioning
administration and material progress they encountered.

6
A group of African Muslim men pray in Senegal, ca. 1950

2 Julius Nyerere, who studied
in England, became the first
prime
minister of Tanzania in 1964

They hoped that
self-rule would help to create these conditions in the former colonies,
too. However, on the threshold of independence, Africa was confronted by
problems that were difficult to resolve and were often a legacy of
colonialism.

The gap between the educated elite and the 1, 7
illiterate majority of the populace was often vast, and the economies of
these nations were intricately bound to the needs of the colonial
metropoles.

Furthermore, many of the former colonies were not "nations"
as such, but zones of European influence. Abstract borders arbitrarily
divided and grouped linguistic and ethnic groups, making it difficult
for the inhabitants to identify with the resultant countries. Tribal
solidarity and majority-versus-minority struggles often undermined the
new democratic structures. An extreme case of societal breakdown was the
1994 genocide in Rwanda. With a colonial legacy of political
instability, unclear borders, poverty, and no infrastructure, the odds
were against the new states.

1
Famine: Undernourished child in a Sudanese refugee camp

7 Night school for the education
of illiterate adults, Cameroon

The End of Colonialism

From the late 1950s, the colonial powers of Great Britain, France, and
Belgium saw their rule in Africa gradually come to an end. Where
possible, they sought to retain their commercial interests.

The three countries responded in different ways to African desires
for independence. The British initially used indigenous social
structures and elites in order to "indirectly" administer their colonies
cheaply and efficiently. The British slowly resigned themselves to
African self-government, although African independence movements forced
the pace.

This was the case in 11 Ghana, which became the first
independent nation in Sub-Sahara n Africa in 1957.

One after another,
colonies became sovereign members of the British Commonwealth:
Nigeria and Somalia in 1960, Uganda in 1962, Zanzibar (which joined with
Tanganyika in 1964 to form Tanzania) and Kenya in 1963, and Zambia in
1964. Rhodesia and South Africa were exceptions, as the white
populations seized power to prevent black majority rule.

France attempted at quite an early stage to grant civil rights to its
Sub-Saharan African colonies and thereby to bind them to the motherland.

In 1944, in order to ensure assistance in the struggle against the Vichy
regime, General de Gaulle, the leader of the French government-in-exile,
assured some of the 13 African leaders that civil rights would be granted
to all inhabitants of the French colonies.

11
Kwame Nkrumah waving to the crowd after having become the first
president of the Republic of Ghana

In 1946 forced labor was abolished, but as the promised benefits
failed to materialize, demands for independence grew louder. De Gaulle's plan for a
union of states under French leadership failed.

With the exception of
Algeria, the French African colonies—including the 10 Ivory
Coast, Guinea, Cameroon, 8 Niger, Senegal, Chad, and the Central African
Republic—gained their 9 independence peacefully after
1960; the
strategically important Djibouti became politically independent only in
1977.

Of the Belgian colonies, the Congo, considered a "model colony,"
underwent a particularly traumatic decolonization experience via
intervention by the United States. Rwanda and Burundi became
independent in 1962.

Portugal employed mercenary troops to stifle the independence movements
in its colonies, 12 Angola and Mozambique.

Bloody fighting raged through
the 1960s, and they did not win their independence until 1975.

12
Civil war in Angola, 1976

Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah

"Our Way to Freedom," 1961

"The African independence movement, which after the Second World War
gained more importance, spread far and wide across Africa like a hush
fire.

The clear, echoing cry for freedom... has become a powerful
hurricane, that will sweep away the old colonial Africa.

The year 1960
was the year of Africa.

In that year alone 17
African states came into being as proud and independent, sovereign
nations."

Kwame Nkrumah, the spiritual leader of Pan-Afrlcanism and of African socialism